Elections, No news is (not always) good news!

Although news and debates on the upcoming local government elections have already monopolized public debates in the media, three very important issues relating to the process rather than the outcome of elections have been relegated to the margins of the debate. It is clear that these elections will be another essential benchmark of the maturity of the democratic system in Albania. The extremely partisan atmosphere that prolonged electoral reform beyond its constitutional time limits brought back the fear that Albania’s political crisis may turn into a real obstacle for the country’s development. The solution to the crisis resembled more a short-term patching with international help rather than a local answer to local problems. As such it gives no guarantees that the outcome will be accepted by the losers and that all sides will grant the electoral mechanisms the benefit of the doubt that they need for electoral standards. This may have an impact on voting day and especially on that crucial day after.
Despite procedural improvementsآy making them more cumbersome with the hope that this will give them the additional weight they requireذolitical parties can wreck the process which remains essentially partisan. And so far we have seen no meaningful indication that the parties will know how to apply the breaks when the final scramble for votes begins.
The second issue related to the electoral process may also be called the dark side of democracy. It is possible that the parties may deform the will of the people in an irreparable manner but without breaking the law. This would be a similar situation to the July 2005 elections in which the corrective proportional allocation of seats was used to reward parties that have no real electoral strength at the expense of others. This is how the Republican Party managed to get a considerable caucus with no support. In Albania this is widely known as the Dushk phenomenon.
Moreover, the Democratic Christian Party has been able to triple its parliamentary group by recruiting MPs from the other partiesصsually parties that also have no real support in the electorate. These MPs lack an electorate and therefore are free to act with their mandate as they see fit. The practice of electing representatives that are not responsible to the people through the mechanism of the free vote has created a floating class of representatives that act according to selfish personal interests thus undermining the very democracy which placed them there.
There are no indications so far of the use of this scheme by the two major parties to help their minor allies. Nevertheless, a true test of support for each party will not happen in these elections either. For as long as this test is postponed, the political future of the parties that leech off the system through machinations rather than true representation is guaranteed.
A country like Albania with little diversity of opinion or articulated interest cannot have over eighty registered parties with more than ten in parliament and local governments. Leaving aside the three or four parties that have created their own identity, the rest resemble NGOs. It is time to raise the 2.5 percent entry threshold and reform the electoral system appropriately.
The third and final question is the issue of campaign financing. All citizens can watch on TV that the campaign’s sophistication requires dangerously powerful financial muscles. State capture begins through party capture. But, not only has the debate on campaign financing remained in the margins of political discourse, but the legal infrastructure does not give the necessary confidence that the moneys going to finance political parties can be properly monitored.